


How It Adds Up

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, HYDRA Trash Party, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Victim Blaming, M/M, Promiscuity, Prostitution, Repressed Memories, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bucky remembers that he used to turn tricks for money in the 1930s, he realizes the Bucky Barnes that Steve believes in is a lie. He's always been the worthless, degenerate creature Hydra told him he was. He just has to make Steve understand that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [the poem by Tony Hoagland](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178874).
> 
> Thanks to [jaune_chat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat) for encouragement and inspiration. 
> 
> Based on [this prompt](http://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/1504.html?thread=1402336#cmt1402336) from the Hydra Trash Party, cleaned up and a bit revised.

It’s the smell that brings the memory back. Bucky stops at the corner of Main Street and Roosevelt as the sun is climbing over the horizon and starting to pick out the grimy stains on the security doors of beauty parlors and pawn shops. When he can’t sleep, he’s taken to walking in Queens because he won’t run into anyone who knows him here. He watches a fish vendor dump the slimy ice from yesterday’s fish, and the scent of that briny sludge slams into him like an attack. 

_“Yeah, take it, take it.”_

_Grit of the alley digging into his knees._

_“Sweet little mouth, good as a cunt.”_

_Fingers tangled in his hair, demanding._

_“That’s it, boy. You love it. Every time, I know you love it.”_

_Reflexive tears wetting his eyes when he gags._

_“See you tomorrow, honey.”_

_The money, damp as he clenches his fist around it._

And Bucky remembers. Before the war, he would come here in the early mornings, and for one of the same reasons: so that no one he knew would see him. So Steve would never know. The fish smell blows past him on a smoggy breeze, and Bucky charges through a group of oncoming commuters to brace himself against a brick wall. 

For a moment, he thinks he might vomit, but he can’t. His body’s too well-disciplined.   
\--

Steve touches Bucky on the shoulder and flashes him a brilliant smile on his way into the kitchen. He looks at Bucky like that every day: as if he’s something good, something Steve cares for. Bucky has been thinking, recently, that he could grow used to that, drinking in Steve’s regard like a man dying of thirst. With every smile, every gentle touch and kind word, Steve reminds him that he should be that brave, charming, _happy_ man, should be the Bucky Barnes that Steve remembers.

But he’s not that man, Bucky knows now. Steve never knew who Bucky really was. He’s the man who, when a customer wanted to come on his face, thought of the rent and just said, “Costs extra.” Who, when a sweaty, balding man insisted on keeping up a running commentary _(“Suck it, you filthy fairy, you cock-hungry whore.”)_ , simply closed his eyes and sucked harder to finish as soon as he could. Who, when an older gentleman with a fancy aftershave smell pulled him in close and whispered, “I’ll pay triple if you let me fuck you,” only nodded. He’d said yes so easily. He’s always had this darkness in him, perfectly suited to be used. He is made for it, just like his handlers had always told him.

Steve’s wrong. There’s no perfect Bucky Barnes to be, and never has been.  
\--

He asks Natasha to get him some files, and sits on the floor under the kitchen table, reviewing the information. Natasha doesn’t ask why he needs the intel, or if he wants to talk, and Bucky is shamefully grateful.

He lays the recovered Hydra documents out in chronological order, placing the photographs from medical examinations on top. Each injury is painstakingly catalogued, even ones deliberately inflicted. Bucky makes a few pencil notations—mostly corrections to the English translations that have been provided alongside copies of the original documents, but also a few additions to timelines or facility layouts as he remembers them. 

There’s no direct mention in the reports of why Hydra began sexual use of the asset, but now that he understands, he looks for the evidence between the lines of dry, bureaucratic documentation. Perhaps they knew from the beginning what kind of man he was, and that’s why they chose him. Or perhaps they knew the first time he killed at their command; they recognized a pathetic wretch who would submit to any indignity, obey even the most depraved commands without question. They knew he could be used for anything. 

So all of it, then, wasn’t the tearing down of an innocent man to remake him as a monster. He had already grown that darkness inside of him. The scientists had simply been plumbing his depths, searching for a limit to how far the soldier could go. Whether he was struggling to breathe around a cock plugging his throat, or writhing with his handler’s fist inside him, or holding his legs spread wide so the doctors could attach electric clips to his balls, he had never said no. 

He makes himself look at every photograph, observing his body in various states of disrepair. No one would have given in so easily, no one who had not already been soiled and broken. Steve would have fought. He would never have done what Bucky had done, because he didn’t deserve it the way Bucky did, wasn’t made to be taken and used and tied down and filled up and--

“Bucky?” Steve calls from the front hall. He stops when he crosses the threshold and sees Bucky sheltered under the table, crouched protectively over his research. “Oh, hey.” Then he blinks and keeps moving, as though he sees a super-assassin cowering like a child every day. “I brought hot dogs. Extra relish. You always liked relish.”

Bucky makes himself crawl out from under the table, and after a moment of shaking away the rush of memories that come with that movement _(“That’s it, down like the bitch you are.”)_ , Bucky pushes to his feet. 

Steve presses two wrapped hot dogs into Bucky’s hand and turns back to the counter to unwrap his own, keeping up a determinedly cheerful commentary about his morning errands that fuzzes to white noise in Bucky’s ears. 

Bucky walks three steps to the trashcan, and lifts the lid. He opens his hand and lets the food fall, watches it disappear into darkness and wishes he could do the same. 

“Bucky?” Steve’s stopped his monologue. He’s coming closer. “Are you—“

“You should forget about what Bucky liked.” When Steve frowns, Bucky tastes something sour as unwanted come. He has to explain. “He’s not worth thinking about.”

Steve swallows hard. “Would you like something else? A sandwich, maybe. Or we could get pizza.”

“I have to go.” He leaves Steve standing alone, which is an improvement, and goes back to his room, turns on the cold water, and sits under the spray until he can’t think for shivering.


	2. Chapter 2

He learns that if he locks himself in the bathroom, he will be left alone. He runs the water in the shower so Steve won’t worry, but he doesn’t step under the spray. He stands in front of the mirror and looks at his body, stripped naked. Exposed. 

He prods at the scars around his metal arm, pieces broken and reforged. He smooths his hand over his abdomen, where he has bled often, but retained no scars. He lifts his chin to look at his neck, where the fingerprints from squeezing hands don’t show. 

Most of Hydra’s use of him in his secondary role—the use lovingly detailed in those photographs Natasha brought him—has not left a mark. And yet, there must be some giveaway, some stain that tells anyone who sees him that he is what he is: damaged, worthless. Meat. 

He needs more information. If he could find out what it is he’s done that’s caused this—if it’s something he can hide, or if it is too obvious a failing to cover up—then he will at least know what to expect. He’ll know for certain that Steve is wrong about him, that he won’t be able to live up to the life Steve is offering him, no matter what he does. It’s time for reconnaissance.  
\--

Natasha goes along, because Bucky doesn’t know anywhere in town that isn’t a place he’s killed someone. She leads the way down the stairs, past the doorman, through the press of bodies and throbbing music that spikes his adrenaline. 

He melts into a shadow and assesses, noting the exits (two, plus the restrooms at the back), the threats (only Natasha, standing beside the bar; the muscled bouncer is no challenge), and the obstacles (sticky floor, slick in places; crowd could impede mobility in case of panic or gunfire).

Natasha presses a tonic water with lime into his hand and delivers a scathing glare to a man who’s approaching her. The man changes course immediately, and she turns back to Bucky. “One hour,” she says. “You want to go sooner, we will.” 

She disappears into the crowd, towards where the dancing is thickest. 

He moves forward, eyes darting over the crowd to pick out individual faces, individual bodies. At Hydra, he’d learned which ones were likely to use him, which ones would want to do the things that hurt, which ones would make him work for it. But even before that, he remembers, he was no stranger to this careful observation. The look of a man he’d pass, who’d turn back with a knowing smile, because he’d recognized what Bucky had on offer. Without any words being exchanged, he _knew_ what Bucky was for, and those men would saunter into an alley, knowing they’d be followed, knowing what Bucky was capable of.

It is the same here. A man approaches: dark hair, spiked on top and short on the sides, the hint of a mustache, square jaw, thin smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He slides a hand around Bucky’s side to rest against his back, then pulls him close. Bucky clenches his metal fist inside its leather glove, but he does not tear this man’s throat out.

“You here alone?” The man’s voice is gravelly, and smells of smoke. He’s close, loud enough to be heard over the thumping bass.

Bucky nods against the man’s shoulder, but he does not pull away. He shakes with the effort of holding still.

“You want to dance?”

Bucky shakes his head, and the man’s smile stretches tighter. 

“No, I know what you want.” His hands slide lower, clench against Bucky’s ass. He pulls the two of them flush together, pressing his hardness between them. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

Bucky’s eyes flick to the bathrooms. He does not look at the exits. He does not look for Natasha. Those aren’t the mission parameters. 

“I knew it.” The man chuckles, and they’re so close Bucky can feel the laughter shake into his own chest. The man knew. He’d looked at Bucky and he knew. 

He hooks his fingers in the pocket of Bucky’s jeans and leads him across the floor. He doesn’t look back to see if Bucky’s following, because he’s seen. He knows, the way the rest had known just by looking at him. 

In the large stall at the end of the row, the man pats his hands against Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky sinks to his knees on the gritty tile. He could break the man’s wrist, but he doesn’t. Instead he watches as the belt at eye level is pulled open, the fly unzipped. 

“Get it out.”

He obeys. He’s good at that. He knows what’s required. A memory rises to the surface and pops like a bubble of oil in the filthy water of the Hudson: the first time he did this. He’d been on his knees, looking up like this, mouth dry and palms sweaty. The sick feeling that should have told him to stop was crushed under thoughts of the rent, and Steve’s medicine, and how this wouldn’t be so bad. He’d closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and the man had thrust in all at once, with a rank smell of sweat and faint taste of piss. Bucky hadn’t fought, hadn’t struggled. He’d tried to do it right, because he’d wanted the money. What’d he’d done was obvious to anyone who saw him, it must have been. It must still be. This man, looking down at him, grins, showing white, shining teeth. He knows.

Without waiting for further instructions, Bucky takes the hardening flesh into his mouth and sucks.

“God, you fucking slut,” the man moans. “Knew it as soon as I saw you, you’d have a filthy fucking mouth.”

He closes his eyes and pushes forward, until the zipper of the man’s jeans digs into his nose. He understands what he’s meant to do, what his function is here.

“That’s it, yeah, not a damn word, just down on your knees taking it like a pro. Good boy.”

Pleasure spreads through him in a sudden flood, shaking his concentration and hardening his cock. He tries to focus on the length in his mouth, on the mission. This isn’t for him. He doesn’t deserve a reward.

Fingers clench, pulling his hair. No one has told him not to fight, but he knows to stay still, to be good. He’d known before, as well. When he’d been Bucky, he’d known not to cry, not to lash out, to let it happen over and over. Had it always been inside him or had he learned this in Brooklyn back alleys the same way he’d learned to throw punches? It must have been in him from the start, or he would never have been able to do what he’d done.

His head knocks backward against the tile, but the pain is good. It’s what he deserves. The man fucks into his mouth hard, shoving him backwards with each thrust until he’s trapped up against the wall, nowhere to go when the thick cock bottoms out against the back of his throat. With a loud groan, the man empties himself into Bucky’s mouth.

In his pants, his cock twitches, desperate, but he doesn’t touch, won’t think of himself. He’s meant to take it, to be used. He is a thing. He’s not some special person worth redeeming. This is him, on his knees, letting it happen. 

The man zips up his pants, and pats him on the head like a dog. “Good boy,” he says again, and Bucky’s cock twitches. 

He stays kneeling on the floor of the stall, tasting the come on his tongue, feeling the ghosts of fingers tugging at his scalp, smelling his own stale sweat, until even the memory of any pleasure he might have felt has subsided. 

In the cab on the way home, Natasha doesn’t take her eyes off him.


	3. Chapter 3

He’s in the bathroom again, sitting on the floor. He hasn’t slept. He can function on very little sleep. Steve has encouraged him to live like a human, to eat regular meals and sleep in a bed eight hours each night, but Steve is wrong about him. He doesn’t need normal things like that, and he doesn’t deserve them. 

Two of his metal fingers press against his lips, then slide into his mouth. He tries to make himself gag, but it’s impossible. That reflex had been trained away long before Hydra got ahold of him. His body isn’t meant for pleasant, gentle, _human_ things.

Steve knocks on the door. “Bucky? I was going to make some dinner. Do you want any?”

He pushes to his feet and lets the fingers fall from his mouth. When he tugs open the door, Steve is standing there, hand poised to knock again. 

“Oh, sorry.” Steve drops his hand to his side. For a moment, he frowns, and Bucky experiences a stab of fear. Now Steve will see what it is Bucky himself has failed to pinpoint: the stamp that declares his worthlessness. But Steve shakes his head. “Uh, I’m making dinner.”

No, Steve hasn’t seen it, then. He doesn’t want to see it, for some reason, which means Bucky is going to have to make it clearer. “I’m going out.” He darts past Steve, careful not to make any contact, and speeds down the hallway.

“Bucky,” Steve calls, and Bucky stops, because he must. When he turns back, Steve is frowning again. “Be careful.”  
\--

Bucky has only walked a block when a Corvette Stingray begins to keep pace beside him. He keeps walking. The car is 460 horsepower, approximately 3200 pounds. He could disable it in 14 seconds with no additional weaponry, but gratuitous damage to essential equipment is a punishable offense. In a chase, outmaneuvering the car on narrow city streets and affecting an escape could take up to six minutes, depending on the driver. Natasha rolls down the window. The locks click in invitation. He gets into the car.

Natasha drives for twenty-two minutes without speaking. She stops at the end of a block, in front of a fire hydrant. Bucky can see the neon light of a dance club up ahead: a different one than they’d gone to yesterday. Natasha’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, but she does not look at him.

“This is something you need?” she asks.

He does not consider that she be referring to anything other than yesterday’s events. She is a very capable intelligence officer. He’s not surprised she has pieced together his actions. He does consider not responding, but determines that might result in additional questions. “Yes.” 

She looks at him, then. There’s no cold calculation in her eyes, as he has seen when his handlers looked to turn weakness to advantage. Instead, there is understanding. “Steve can’t give it to you.”

“No.” It comes out more sharply than he intends, but he needs Natasha to understand. Steve has to find out eventually, but he shouldn’t be touched by this, shouldn’t be stained by whatever’s marked Bucky.

Rain begins to spatter against the windows, blurring the city’s lights into shining streaks. “What about me?” she asks.

He assesses that proposal for a moment. Natasha is strong. She is hard. She could hurt him, if he let her. Then he shakes his head. “Strangers. Those are the parameters.”

She nods, and shifts the car back into gear.  
\--

It starts much the same, this time. He sees the interest in the target’s eyes. The man has light hair and a smooth face. He is not old, or at least, he looks young, like someone who has never watched anyone bleed out, has never been the cause of death.

This time Bucky leads the way, and locks the door to the bathroom behind them. Immediately he goes to work unfastening the man’s pants.

“Hey, woah, are you sure you want to--? Right this minute?” The man puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and squeezes. 

It’s a nonverbal order. Bucky stops. 

“We can go back to my place, if you want.” The man leans in and presses a kiss to Bucky’s cheek, below the ear. His short blond hair is at eye level. “Have a drink first.”

“No.” Bucky risks that much defiance, because he knows what the man must want from him, ultimately. He finishes with the belt, and the pants, and reaches his hand inside to wrap around the man’s cock. 

The man gasps, high and drawn out. “Okay, here is fine too, I guess.”

The man is halfway hard already. Bucky withdraws his hand to spit on it before returning to his task. 

“Oh man, don’t stop.” The man slings one arm around Bucky’s shoulders and leans into him, breathing hard. “That’s so good. Here, let me.” He reaches for Bucky’s pants. 

“Don’t.” Bucky jerks back so quickly he knocks the breath out of his lungs when he impacts the wall. But he does not let go of the man’s growing erection. He keeps stroking dutifully, even as the man frowns at him, his furrowed brow an echo of Steve’s expression earlier.

“Are you okay? It seems like—“

“Please.” It’s difficult to concentrate when the man keeps looking at him like that, so Bucky folds to his knees and wraps his mouth around the man’s cock, and that succeeds in stopping his objections.

“Oh man, you’re so good at that.” The man’s fingers tangle in his hair, and Bucky knows what’s coming, but then, no, they tug gently through his locks, then release, and repeat the movement, stroking gently across the back of his head. “Yeah, you’re beautiful. I am so fucking lucky. Will you look at me?”

Bucky looks up, keeping his mouth wrapped tightly around the man’s cock.

“That’s it. You’re so good.”

A small curl of pleasure unwinds in Bucky’s chest, but he crushes it. He tears his eyes away and pushes forward until his throat is stuffed full, cutting off his air and making tears gather at the corners of his eyes. This is not meant to be enjoyable. No, it has to be rough, has to hurt. No one treats him kindly, because it’s not necessary. If this man, this _stranger_ can treat him like this, there’s something wrong. He knows everyone can look at him and see what he is. He has evidence. So why would this stupid, stubborn man pretend that Bucky’s worth something, pretend he deserves anything besides pain. He will not be tricked into believing that, not again. 

He holds himself there, choking, until the man pushes at his shoulder. The touch is directive, and he must obey, so he backs off, gulping in air.

“Slow down,” the man says, with a nervous chuckle. “It’s not a race.”

The tone is gentle, almost playful. But not like Bucky is a plaything—like he’s in on the joke, somehow. Like he wants this, too. His metal fingers clench against his thigh, denting the muscle there and sending punishing jolts of pain up his spine. He darts in again, this time using his flesh hand and his tongue in every way he knows.

“Hey man, take it easy, you don’t have to—Oh!”

With an expert press of tongue into the slit, the man is coming, his words melting into shouted vowels. Even then, losing control of himself, he does not grab, or push, or hit. Bucky rides out the wave of the man’s climax, swallowing diligently. When the man pulls back, Bucky lets the softening flesh drop from his mouth. 

He does not expect the man to melt to his knees before him. 

The man presses a kiss to Bucky’s mouth, heedless of the mess lingering on his tongue. “That was…” The man chuckles again, and Bucky’s fingers dig harder into his leg. “You are amazing.” 

Bucky’s cock throbs in his pants, even as he tries to hold himself still under the man’s touch. He is not meant to enjoy this. If he can enjoy this, he will start to think that he deserves this, and then it will hurt more when he is reminded that this is not for him.

“Can I return the favor?” The man leans forward, sliding his hands up Bucky’s thighs.

“No!” His hand—the flesh one—is around the man’s throat, and they are both on their feet when the door bangs open, lock dangling from the frame. Natasha is there, framed by the darkness of the club beyond.

She keeps one hand on the door and the other out of sight until Bucky lets go and backs up. The guy zips up his pants and hurries past Natasha, away to safety.

Bucky pushes to his feet and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  
\--

Natasha checks him for injuries without touching him. “We need to talk,” she says, and looks at where he is still pressing dents into his thigh with his metal hand. He makes himself stop. 

“Stay here,” she says, and goes to run interference on the club’s manager, who has gathered several security guards. When Natasha steps out of sight, he makes use of one of the six exit routes he’d noted during his assessment.

Rain splatters onto the pavement. It is his friend tonight. It will make him harder to track. 

It’s early, yet, and he hasn’t gotten what he needs. He can still feel that man’s gentle touch stroking through his hair, hear the approval in his voice. That’s wrong. He knows that’s wrong.

It is difficult to find somewhere to go. Without Natasha, people look at him and know he doesn’t belong. It is hours before he finds himself again in the enveloping chaos of a club, this one large and loud, with several stories of revelers, bodies pressed against each other, and hungry gazes roaming. Here, they will recognize him, and know what he is.

He is on the first floor when he spots Natasha. She hasn’t yet seen him, and he retreats into the shadows near the wall. If he moves with the crowd, she won’t spot the patterns of disruption. He’s made it nearly to the door when a hand closes around his wrist, warm against his flesh. “Isn’t it time to call it a night?”

He turns to see Barton, Clint, codename Hawkeye standing behind him, blending into the crowd with the same unerring ease Natasha shows. He had not anticipated this aspect of Barton’s training. 

“You know who I am?” Barton asks.

He nods. He does not remember meeting the man, but he has read files, though he recalls them only vaguely. The man could not have been a target, because he would be dead, but he may have had some connection to a target, once. Still, he is a stranger. He is within mission parameters.

The hand is tight on his wrist, firm but not insistent. He could break Barton’s grip. Instead, he tugs gently, towards the door. 

Barton looks back, scanning the crowd for Natasha, but Bucky pulls again, then starts to move. As he anticipated, Barton follows him the last three feet to the exit and out into the alley, where the rain still turns the dark night a misty grey. 

As soon as the door clicks shut behind them, Bucky twists his arm to clamp onto Barton’s wrist and executes a simple over-shoulder throw. 

Barton recovers enough to land in a neat roll rather than on his back, and in an instant, he’s up and ready for the next attack. The remnants of his memory on the files say Barton prefers projectile weapons, so Bucky keeps the match in close quarters with a slow charge. 

Barton has more than sufficient time to sidestep the move and execute a neat kick that sends Bucky towards the wall. He doesn’t bother to catch himself, letting the impact jolt through him. He waits one heartbeat past the moment when he might have moved, which is just soon enough to catch Barton’s fist and shove him backwards. He could have broken Barton’s arm, but he does not want to hurt him. He does not want to win. 

Barton comes up with a pipe from a pile of construction debris, and Bucky has to close with him again, shortening his reach and making the weapon useless. A kick lands hard on his kidney, and a punch against his cheek, but Bucky does not cry out. He staggers backwards, responding with blows of his own until he senses the wall behind him. Then he executes a vicious roundhouse that knocks Barton to the side, but leaves Bucky exposed. In less than six seconds, his face is pressed to the wall, his arms wrenched up behind him, immobilized. 

“Are you done?” Barton is breathing hard. Possibly he is angry. He will want to punish Bucky. That is good.

Bucky nods. He bows his head, exposing the back of his neck, and widens his stance. He shifts backwards, until he can feel the outline of Barton’s cock against his ass. The adrenaline has done its work. 

“Barnes,” Barton says warningly. He starts to pull away, and Bucky’s hands hurry to his belt. He will take his pants off, and Barton will use him as he’s meant to be used. He won’t speak softly or make the mistake of thinking Bucky deserves kindness. He knows that Bucky is the enemy, that he deserves to be hurt. 

“Don’t.” Barton grabs his wrists and pulls them away from their work. 

Bucky presses his hands against the wall, out of the way. Sometimes they want to strip him themselves, or cut off his clothes. He waits.

“Barnes,” Barton says again. “This isn’t…”

Bucky turns to run an assessment. Barton is bleeding from a split lip, and curled a bit to the right, possibly favoring a cracked rib on that side. Perhaps Bucky miscalculated. Perhaps Barton doesn’t want to do all the work. He drops to his knees and feels the wet of a puddle immediately soak through his jeans.

“No,” Barton says sharply. “We’re not doing that.”

Bucky raises his head and squints at Barton through the rain. His heart is pounding in his chest. He runs over the mission parameter in his mind, looking for something he missed. Barton knows he’s the enemy. Barton can take what he wants. It must be obvious what Bucky is used to—what Bucky is _for_.

“Okay. Wait.” Barton takes a step forward, reaching out a hand as one would approach a wild animal: palm down, an order to stay. 

The click of heels on pavement coalesces out of the mist, and Natasha appears beside Barton. “You all right?” she asks. 

When Barton doesn’t answer, Bucky realizes she’s asking him. He lowers his eyes. 

“Here.” She brushes past Barton. There is no sound audible above the rain and the traffic, but he senses Natasha crouched beside him. She touches a finger to the skin on his cheekbone, broken from the fight, which is already beginning to heal. He does not look up. She says, “Let’s go home.”

When he follows the two of them back to the car, his dick is throbbing insistently, and the dread that’s been growing since his walk by the fish market has spread like poison, slowing his every movement. Still, when Barton points to the car, he obeys.


	4. Chapter 4

He opens and closes the door to his room and waits to the count of twenty to make sure no one is coming to check on him. Then he stalks back down the hallway to listen. Steve had been awake when they returned, and from the dark impressions under his eyes, he’d likely not slept at all. If he’s unfit for the field, it will be Bucky’s fault.

Now Steve sits in the living room with Barton and Natasha. Bucky holds very still and keeps his breathing shallow, but he can’t pick out individual words. They are talking very quietly. He knows what will happen now. They will tell Steve what they’ve seen him do, what he’s for. They’ve seen the evidence. Barton was too disgusted to make use of him, but he understood.

As the conversation continues, Steve’s voice rises in volume and intensity. He is angry. Of course he is. He knows now that Bucky isn’t who he thought he was. He’s been tricked. He’s been deceived. 

Bucky stands in the hallways, waiting, until long after Barton and Natasha have left. Steve will punish him, now. It’s what he deserves. All this time and attention wasted on someone who’s worthless and broken. So he waits. But Steve does not come. Bucky stands in the hall and listens, and Steve sits alone in the dark until dawn pinks the sky.  
\--

Steve says nothing about the conversation that day, or the next. Bucky stays close, wanting to make it easy for Steve when he finally decides to administer punishment. Strangely, Steve hasn’t stopped those little touches that have become routine: a bump of his shoulder against Bucky’s when they’re waiting for the train, a hand on his back if he slides past him to get to the fridge. If anything, they happen more often. When Barton stops by to drop off a file, Steve keeps his hand on the small of Bucky’s back for the entire seven-minute duration of the visit. 

Bucky jealously hoards the warmth of those touches, because they won’t happen for much longer. Soon, any day now, Steve will have to admit that he was wrong, and that he can’t waste time on someone as worthless as Bucky.

So he waits, and he stays close, which is why he is in the bodega watching Steve buy gum when the call comes in. Natasha has found a cell of Hydra refugees. 

Steve stops home only long enough to change and pick up weapons, but he hesitates as Bucky starts to follow him out the door. “You should stay here.” 

Bucky shakes his head.

“You don’t have to come.” 

Bucky looks back at Steve until he keeps moving.  
\--

The assault doesn’t come as a surprise to the Hydra agents. They are organized and vigilant. Order comes from pain, Bucky knows. 

Natasha, Barton, and the one they call Falcon are providing cover, but Steve takes on the frontal assault. When he’d been the Winter Soldier, he had understood Steve only as an impediment to his mission and then a target, but now he can appreciate the beauty of his fighting, the fluid way he dodges, the controlled strength as he throws the shield, and the efficiency of dropping an enemy with one shot. No one can touch him.

Bucky follows in his wake, knives out. After the uncertainty of the last days, it feels good to kill again. His blades cut through flesh and slide against bone, and warm blood spatters against his face. He is not wearing a muzzle. He looks down at the knife in his hand, his flesh hand. It feels warm and heavy. His ears are ringing. When he looks up, there is a man with a gun in the corner of his vision. 

He starts to crouch, but then movement blurs between him and the hostile. The bullets ping off Steve’s shield, and then the man drops with an arrow in his throat. Steve glances back, quickly. His eyes linger on the blood spots, and the knife. “All right?”

Bucky nods. 

Steve dashes off, and Bucky feels a cold rage rising inside of him. He does not want this to be happening. He will not allow it.

Distractions disappear around him as the anger provides focus. He moves, and hears a crack as a target’s neck breaks with a satisfying twist. There’s a gun in his hand, and two more are down. He’s moving fast now, overtaking one ally, then another. The hostiles inside the base are better armored, but he is skilled as well as strong. As soon as he sees them, they die. He will kill all of them. He will eliminate every threat. He will complete the mission quickly and efficiently, and his handlers will be pleased. Bones break, bullets thud into flesh. Behind him, something explodes. 

His knife is buried in flesh, caught in bone, and his hands are too slick to get a good grip. He can’t pull it out. Nothing else in the room is moving.

“Bucky?” Steve drops into view, crouching on the floor in front of him, between the bodies. 

“That’s one way to clear out a nest, I guess.” Barton is holding his bow loosely in one hand, not on the alert. Bucky scans the room for threats anyway, but there are none. All the hostiles are unmoving. He should verify termination.

“Bucky.”

His attention swivels back to Steve, who has wrapped his hand around Bucky’s over the knife. 

“Let go.”  
\--

The shower washes away the blood, though he has to scrub under his nails until it hurts. He does everything efficiently. Steve is waiting. There’s something he needs to tell him. 

He dresses in old sweats of Steve’s that have the SHEILD logo emblazoned on the leg and across the breast. It’s an indulgence, but he’ll allow himself this one. He won’t be getting any others, after this.

Steve is in the living room, sitting on the couch. His is smeared with dirt and soot, but he is not injured.

“You all right?” Steve asks. 

Bucky doesn’t answer. He folds to his knees in front of the couch. Steve smells of sweat and gunpowder. Steve did well today during the mission, and he deserves a reward. That will be fitting; it will serve as a bonus for the mission’s success, and it will help Steve understand what Bucky is. Bucky reaches for the fastenings on Steve’s uniform, but Steve grabs his wrists and holds them. 

“Bucky.” 

He looks up. Steve is watching him closely, looking at him as he always does, as if he is worthy of attention and concern. He wrenches out of Steve’s grip. “You can’t do that.” His voice comes out hoarse and rusty, like he’s been screaming. He decides to repeat himself, to make certain Steve has heard him. “You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” Steve’s eyes are narrowed, like he’s trying to work out the meaning, which is unacceptable. This has to be perfectly clear. 

“When I was under fire today, you interfered. You put yourself in danger.”

“That’s what soldiers do, Buck,” Steve says slowly. “We have each other’s backs. The Howlies always—“

“No. Not for me. You can’t do that for me.”

“Bucky—“

“No. It’s not right.” He bats Steve’s hands out of the way and goes again for the belt.

Steve shoves him away, but Bucky counters with a grip on Steve’s wrist, pulling him off the couch when Bucky falls back. A quick throw of his weight, and he’s on top, pinning Steve against the rug. Steve’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t struggle. Good. Perhaps he’ll make this easy. Easier.

“They told you. I know Barton told you. You know what I am. You can not put yourself in danger for something like me.”

“Bucky—“ Steve tries to get up, and Bucky slams him back down, harder than he means to.

“Bucky is not who you think he is. He does not exist.”

“You are Bucky.”

“I am nothing.” He shoves Steve again, and this time catches Steve’s grunt of pain. He scrambles backwards until his back hits the couch, his heart pounding in his chest as Steve sits up. “You can’t risk yourself for me. It’s not right. Everybody sees it but you.” 

Everyone. The beat cop who made Bucky suck him each morning before his rounds, in exchange for turning a blind eye. The man who had asked if Bucky’s friend was for sale, too, and then spent an afternoon paying back Bucky’s wild punch by holding Bucky down on a mattress and playing with him until he begged to be fucked. The handler who made him say thank you to each of the soldiers who fucked him, no matter how much he was bleeding. The Secretary, watching impassively as Bucky moved slowly up and down in his lap, trying so hard to be good. The man at the club. Barton. Even those too disgusted by him to act on the invitation could tell what he was for.

“You can’t pretend I’m someone I’m not.”

Steve stands up abruptly, and for a sick, wonderful second Bucky thinks he's come to his senses, is about to shove Bucky down, put him in his place, to use Bucky like he's meant to be use. But a glance up shows that terrible, poisonous kindness in his eyes, and Bucky scrambles to his feet and shoves away before he can be touched.

“Please,” he says, so quietly it barely makes a sound, even in the stillness of the room. “You don’t understand.”

Steve holds up his hands, the gesture of a man who is unarmed, though that’s a lie. He has the power to gut Bucky or to set him free. If Steve will just stop insisting that Bucky is someone he’s not, then he can let go. He can resign himself to the inevitable and crush that treacherous, dangerous hope that had grown in the days since Project Insight. “Tell me,” Steve says.

He lets himself sink down to his knees, back in his place. He doesn’t look at Steve. “This is what I’m meant for. From the beginning, before I even left New York. I’m not what you think. They must have seen what I was. I’m not some innocent victim that they spoiled. I was already broken.”

“Bucky.” Steve crouches, puts himself in Bucky’s sightline. “You’re not responsible for what they did to you.”

“I am responsible for what I chose to do.” He raises his eyes and makes himself look at Steve. “Before the war. In alleys, in filthy rooms. For money.”

Steve blinks three times, rapidly. Faster than the physical need for moisture should necessitate. Then he is silent for a long moment, and Bucky permits himself a moment of optimism. Perhaps Steve will finally see the truth. Yes, he’s nodding. “That explains some things.”

Bucky allows the relief to bloom, just a little. But then Steve reaches a hand out and touches it to Bucky’s shoulder, too gently for the filth that clings to Bucky, no matter how much he bathes. “I should have figured that out. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”

He drops his eyes. “I’m made for it.”

“No, you survived it. You did what you had to. Then you got out, to the Army. You survived Zola. You got out again. You survived everything Hydra threw at you, worse things than any man should have to face, and you got through it. You’re out. You’re still here. And I’m with you. Bucky, look at me.”

He looks. Steve’s fingers are warm on his arm. Light. Like he’s valuable, and deserves to be taken care of.

“I see you. I’ve known you all our lives, and I know more about you than any Hydra degenerate, any greedy lout who’d take advantage of a desperate kid, and any stranger in a club. I see you.”

Bucky can’t move under Steve’s gaze. Unbalanced, he leans forward, into Steve’s touch, and Steve catches him and holds him up.


End file.
